A recent Vlogbrothers video described the staggering impact that the invention of cordage and textiles has had on human development. The video features a fascinating interview by Hank Green with Virginia Postrel, author of the book The Fabric of Civilization. The interview reveals some amazing facts about this technology, such as:
- A single pair of blue jeans contains about six miles of thread
- One skilled spinner in pre-industrial India needed ~100 hours just to spin enough cotton for one pair of trousers
- Silk is not made of short fibres but one continuous filament that can be miles long and which must be carefully unreeled from the cocoon
- The earliest known string is about 50,000 years old and was likely made by Neanderthals; it was clearly ‘manufactured’—twisted and then plied in opposite directions for strength and durability
- The sail for a Viking ship took more total labour to produce than the ship itself
- Textiles were once the most commonly stolen items, serving as an alternative underground ‘currency’ in many cultures, and until the 20th century clothing was the most expensive line in most people’s household budget
Here’s an AI synopsis of the conversation that I thought captured its main points well:
1. Textiles are a foundational human technology—on par with agriculture
Virginia Postrel argues that fiber, cordage, and textiles are among humanity’s most important technologies, emerging before or alongside agriculture, and possibly enabling it. String-making predates farming and is at least 50,000 years old, likely developed by Neanderthals. Once humans could make cordage, they could create nets, bags, baby carriers, sails, and tools—making textiles a general-purpose technology essential to civilization.
2. We suffer from “textile amnesia” because of its modern abundance
The interview emphasizes that today’s extreme abundance and cheapness of clothing has made textile production largely invisible. Earlier generations routinely learned about spinning, weaving, and fibers in school, but this knowledge has nearly vanished in Postrel’s lifetime. This invisibility obscures how labor-intensive, innovative, and central textiles once were to everyday life and economic survival.
3. Textile labor shaped daily life, gender roles, and economies
For most of history, a huge share of human labor went into textiles. Spinning alone occupied vast amounts of women’s time across cultures and social classes. Spinning was nearly universal female labor.
4. Textiles drove trade, wealth, crime, and power
Cloth and garments were among the most valuable and portable forms of wealth. Theft records (such as those from London’s Old Bailey) show textiles as the most commonly stolen goods. Textiles were also central to long-distance trade, imperial expansion, and industrialization—often determining who held economic and political power.
5. The Industrial Revolution begins with spinning, not steam
The mechanization of spinning—especially cotton spinning—was a catalyst for the Industrial Revolution. It triggered cascading effects throughout agriculture, manufacturing, global trade, and labor relations.
6. Innovation in textiles is incremental, disruptive, and cyclical
Textile history shows a pattern of slow improvements punctuated by sudden leaps (e.g., spinning machines, power looms, Jacquard cards). These innovations often initially provoked resistance, riots, and fear before frequently being adopted by the same workers who initially opposed them.
7. Aesthetic innovation matters as much as functional innovation
Postrel highlights that people have always cared about beauty, color, and meaning—not just utility. The global, independent discovery of indigo dye and the labor invested in decorative cloth thousands of years ago demonstrate that aesthetics are a driving force of innovation, not a luxury add-on.
8. Textiles connect technology, culture, and language
Textile metaphors permeate language (“thread,” “fabrication,” “on tenterhooks,” “shuttle”), reflecting how deeply textile processes shaped human thinking. The word “technology” itself shares roots with textile terms, underscoring how woven material culture underlies modern technological concepts.
9. Archaeology and history have systematically overlooked textiles
Because textiles rarely survive archaeologically, and because scholars long underestimated their importance [perhaps because most scholars were men], much textile evidence was ignored or destroyed. This has distorted historical understanding—despite the fact that many ancient records (such as the 3300 ya Linear B stone tablets) focus heavily on textile production. The evolution of textiles provides one of the clearest, longest-running case studies of how civilization is literally—and figuratively—woven together.
[End of AI generated text. Edited by DP for brevity and clarity.]
Hank acknowledges that he now must add cordage and textiles to his list of the ‘foundational’ technologies of our species. His list now includes:
- Language
- Agriculture
- Cordage and Textiles
- Cooking and Fire
- Containers
- Stone tools
Hank was likely inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s work to include ‘containers’ on his list. Her argument was that the earliest critical invention of humans was not weaponry, but the carrier bag, needed to transport just about anything from place to place. Its “tie-in” (if you’ll excuse the play on words) to agriculture and to cordage and textiles is obvious. All these foundational technologies are tightly interconnected.
The subsequent invention of things like paper and the printing press and the computer and the electric light and antibiotics and vaccines and Haber-Bosch-process fertilizers, for example, have of course been important in the evolution of our species and its cultures.
But we probably could have made do without them.
Not sure about art and music. It’s pretty foundational to who we are, and predates language. Who/what would we be without them?
Just to reiterate what I’ve said on my previous AI-inspired posts:
1. I have a love-hate relationship with AI. When it’s used properly and carefully as a tool, as an aid to learning and creativity, I believe it can be very useful, and enormous fun. But most of its large-scale applications (like replacing jobs and facilitating wars and surveillance) are ill-considered, immoral, incompetently designed and conceived, vastly overreaching the actual capabilities of AI, ecologically disastrous, socially disruptive, and extremely dangerous.
2. The staggering amount that has been invested in AI has absolutely no viable business case to justify it. It represents possibly the most astounding squandering of money based purely on imagined and improbable future developments and blind faith, in history. Those who have studied this have concluded that this massive bubble will soon burst, and those who’ve invested in it will lose their shirts. At that time, the window to use AI as a learning and creativity tool will quickly close forever. Our playing with these essentially-free tools now is not going to aggravate its abusive uses, nor will it have any impact on the timing or extent of the coming AI crash. So my view is: use it, smartly and cautiously, while you can; it will soon be gone.
